


Breaking Point

by ardellian



Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén
Genre: Gen, academia hell, character exploration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:33:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25638109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardellian/pseuds/ardellian
Summary: Not-yet-Dr Mortum finds that academia doesn't really agree with her.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	Breaking Point

There’s a big purple circle where distinguished Professor Ackermann’s face is supposed to be.

She can see herself, down in the right corner, and the frowning faces of her supervisor Meister and colleague Tavella, but that bastard won’t show his face.

He won’t show his fucking face.

“—I hope you understand that we are all very sorry that this is the way things have turned out—”

Not even an excuse. Won’t even let them to keep some dignity – no conveniently broken camera or bad connection – just a simple statement that he won’t be on video today.

Coward.

Their camera was already on, and turning it off again would have been a sign that they took offense at this white 'A' floating in a purple void as a substitute for his face, and that would be _rude_ , wouldn’t it? Can't risk to offend mighty Professor Ackermann and all his money.

So now she's starting at her own blank face in the corner of the screen as the voice from the speakers drones on about how her work is worthless.

Unpublishable.

“—in it’s current state. The work itself is of course very good, but the academic rigor is – and I hope you agree with me here – simply not really up to par. We hope to be able to run more experiments in the future to further investigate—”

Her supervisor cuts him off. “Excuse me, Professor, but when do you think you could do these experiments?”

She can’t see his face. No flickering gaze, no self-conscious fidgeting. No signs of shame.

“Oh,” he says, “well, as you know, we are currently performing some upgrades to the lab, and Emilie, who was a part of the original experiments together with your student”—your student, like she doesn’t even have a name anymore—”will be defending her thesis before that is finished so we will have to train her replacement—”

Too long. It will take too long. She only has funding until the end of the year and there is _no way_.

She stares at her own expressionless face. Maybe it’s good, that the camera is on. This way, she can keep her face in check, and she won’t make a fool out of herself in front of her coworkers.

“Well,” says her supervisor. “This is of course a great disappointment on our end. From my perspective, the work is extremely interesting and would definitely make a big impact. I feel like it has a lot to add to the current literature.”

“Of course,” says Ackermann, “you are right that the work is very important, which is why we believe it is even more important that we present that work in a complete state.” There is a short pause. “In a… patentable state.”

She clutches the pen in her hand hard – hard enough that she makes an ugly little squiggle in her notebook. She has taken no notes. On the top of the page she’s put the day’s date and the name of the disgusting purple blob, but she hasn’t written anything. What can is there to say?

Her supervisor frowns—she sees it on the video feed—and then looks at her.

“You don’t think you could go back to Professor Ackermann’s lab to help with these, eh, further investigations?” he asks, but they both know she doesn’t have time. Doesn’t have enough money to have time.

It takes too long to open her mouth without screaming and Ackermann answers for her. “We don’t think that’s advisable at this time,” he says.

Everybody is silent.

“Of course,” she says into the void.

They continue, her supervisor and Ackermann, telling each other how regrettable the situation is. Ackermann doesn’t give an inch. It’s bullshit. It’s money. It’s all money. They don’t give a shit about _academic rigor_ – Ackermann knows they have something possibly valuable in their hands and he’s going to keep it locked up for years until he can mold it into something that could be marketable. It’s his samples. His funding.

_Her work._

She made it work. _She did_ , with some help of that poor girl Emily, and all Ackermann _ever_ did was come into _her lab_ —it was hers, screw him, fuck him, _fuck him she was the one who did it—_ and laugh about how they were wasting their time and that she’d be lucky that at least with his name they’d get their work into some nice journal and now?

_Unpublishable_.

Because he wants to hoard _her fucking results_ to himself, the _fucker._

Tavella keeps throwing worried and sympathetic looks her way but she carefully and deliberately keeps staring at herself on the video feed. She won’t give that purple blob the satisfaction.

He won’t be able to recreate her results in a million years. He’s going to throw some poor new grad student at the problem, and her results will rot on a hard drive somewhere along with her career.

They end the call with reassurances that _of course we will still continue our collaboration and goodbye and best of luck to you Professor Ackermann and to you too Professor Meister… and your colleagues as well, of course._

Your supervisor leans back in his chair with a sigh and mutters under his breath, _“Aber Gott, was für ein Arschloch.”_

Tavella leans over the table and looks at her pointedly. “Are you all right?” he asks.

“Stupid man,” her supervisor grumbles before she can answer. “He is selfish and rude and if we didn’t need his money I would tell him—” He cuts himself off with a sigh, and then looks at you.

“Look,” he says. “I will try to talk to him again, alone.” He shakes his head. “But I think you should start preparing a publication on what you can. The theory parts he can’t object to. You’ve been to two conferences with that now.”

On those conferences, she had promised great things. Results. And she had them. She _had it_ and because of that bastard she would never—

She nods, and tries to smile.

“I’ll do my best,” she says, and then, “will you excuse me?” and she hurries out of the room, down the corridor, into her office.

Her office. Her desk. Her papers and books and her computer, where she’s worked for so long to get the results that now belong to fucking Professor Ackermann.

With a shaky exhale she sinks down in her chair, stares at her hands.

There’s nothing she can do. Ackermann owns the samples, provided the funding for all of the equipment. The results are hers—but it’s a technicality. She can’t publish without her supervisor. Her supervisor would never throw away a ten year collaboration with a group as successful as Ackermann’s because of the career of _one_ grad student.

Fuck.

She pulls the memory drive out of the laptop. For a split second she considers dropping it out the window – it would be pointless; of course she has backups – but seeing her work literally get smashed to bits on the pavement 15 meters below instead of just figuratively by a faceless purple blob—

Well. Might be cathartic.

It’s not like she can do much else with it. Can’t even take it out of the building. Private funding ensures that. Secrecy.

It’s a scam. The whole damn thing is a fucking scam—no one here really cares about science, about discovery—it’s just one big calculated scheme of _how much money can we make and how._

She might as well be working in product development. In marketing.

On a leash to some big corporation who wants a new shiny piece of technology—

“Hey,” say Tavella, and knocks on her open door. She snaps her head up, and he smiles apologetically. “The rest of us are heading out for a drink. Wanna come?” His smile turns pitiful. “It’s on me, if you'll let me?”

He doesn’t say she probably needs it, but god if that isn't the truth.

“Yeah,” she sighs, and the smile she gives back is probably weak but at least it feels real. “Yeah, I’ll come.”

“Great!” he beams. Pushes himself away from the door frame into the corridor. Calls out to her other colleagues as he walks away—”He’s coming!”

Her smile freezes.

She clenches her teeth tight tight tight together and what is she supposed to do? He’s gone. Didn’t even think twice about it.

She just sits there, paralyzed. Can decline now, can she. Can’t say, I suddenly don’t feel like it anymore, don’t really feel like any of this fucking shit anymore.

A scam, a fucking scam, all of it.

“Are you coming?” someone else calls out to her.

Of course she’s coming.

Of course.

What else is she supposed to do? Throw a tantrum?

Lean out of the window and scream her lungs raw?

She grabs her jacket, and her bag, and then, she takes the memory drive and she shoves it into the bottom of that bag because screw these people, screw this place, screw their rules—it’s her work and she doesn’t know what she’s going to do with it—not like she has her own lab and equipment and money—but it’s _hers_.

She made it work, and screw all of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Short bit of indulgent speculation on Mortum's background. It turns out that imagining reasons to turn your back on academia and become an evil scientist is, uh... not hard.


End file.
